Sponsor
Ben Ray Luján
Senator · D-NM
Senator · D-NM
The bill strengthens consumer protections (billing credits, customer-service and accessibility rules, and outage transparency) and creates federal enforcement tools, but increases compliance and reporting burdens that may raise costs for consumers, leaves gaps for customers of very small providers, and poses privacy and implementation challenges.
Residential and small-business broadband customers receive automatic pro rata billing credits for each day with 4+ hours of outage, reducing their bills when service is lost.
Broadband subscribers and emergency responders gain faster public awareness of internet outages (DIRS reporting), improving consumers' ability to seek alternatives and helping public-safety agencies coordinate response during disasters.
Customers — including people with disabilities and seniors — get stronger customer-service access and accessibility protections (extended FCC rules), the ability to obtain call recordings for up to one year to aid dispute resolution, and protections against callback fees and onerous return requirements.
Many consumers risk higher bills or reduced service investment because providers face new compliance and reporting costs that can be passed on to customers.
Customers served by very small providers (≤5,000 customers) — often in rural or low-income areas — may be excluded from these protections, and uniform thresholds create regulatory cliff effects that can discourage growth or strain small/rural carriers' ability to comply.
Mandatory retention/release of customer-call recordings and public disclosure of outage locations increase privacy and data-security risks and could expose network vulnerabilities.
Based on analysis of 5 sections of legislative text.
Large communications providers must auto-credit customers for outages of 4+ hours, refund excess on termination, adopt customer-service accessibility/recording rules, and report broadband outages during DIRS activations.
Official title: Require telephone providers, cable television providers, direct broadcast satellite service providers, and internet providers to automatically refund their customers when their services are not working, and for other purposes.
Introduced May 18, 2026 by Ben Ray Luján · Last progress May 18, 2026
Requires large cable, satellite, broadband, and telephone providers to automatically credit customers for service outages of four hours or more, and to refund amounts when service is terminated. It also directs the FCC and FTC to issue customer-service rules (including accessibility and call-record retention), extends customer-service obligations to additional provider types, and requires broadband outage reporting during federally activated disaster reporting periods.